Red Wine
- Details
- Published: 19 February 2016 19 February 2016
Can I offer you a protective layer of something mouth-pleasingly delightful to take your mind of this, the tail end of winter?
These wines from Rioja combine the core components of quality: complexity of flavour, value for money and colossal scope for pleasure.
One bottle is never enough. We owe it to our bodies and our minds to drink responsibly, therefor quotas must be set by our appetites (and mine is huge!).
Castillo San Lorenzo Reserva, 2010
Grapes: mazuelo, graciano, tempranillo
Ok, this is your “smash’n’grab” bottle from Tesco. It is good quality and damn cheerful. Lovely mouthful of cherries and blackberries, with soft silky tannins and pleasant vanilla oak flavour. A great weekday playmate!
RRP £6.50 from Tesco
http://www.tesco.com/wine/product/details/default.aspx?id=256990990
Viñedos de Altura, Crianza, 2012, Bodegas Ramon Bilbao
Grapes: 50% garnacha, 50% tempranillo
Very comforting mouthfeel with plenty of spice and gentle but present oakiness. Very enjoyable. I immediately thought of a plate of cured hams, succulent Jamón ibérico with soft, nearly runny inside, chorizo tortilla.
RRP £12.95
http://www.bodegasramonbilbao.es/tienda/index.php/ramon-bilbao-vinedos-de-altura-crianza.html
Baron de Ley Reserva, 2010
Grape: 100% tempranillo
Lovely red colour, especially around the edges of the meniscus. Ripe plum fruit on the nose, with hint of vanilla form the oak. Great taste with soft tannins for a long gentle finish. This wine is really tasty and great value at £12.49. I think I bought a bottle for even less in-store at Waitrose - worth checking for promotional discounts.
Roasted pork cutlets with herbs would go well. Really easy wine and well priced for a night in chatting with loved ones / friends!
RRP £12.49
http://www.waitrosecellar.com/all-wines/wine-type/baron-de-ley-rioja-reserva
Cune Imperial Reserva, 2010
Grapes: 85% tempranillo, 10% graciano, 5% mazuleo
Delicious red fruit nose, really attractive! Really nice balance in the mouth of soft vanilla, ripe bursting red fruits, strawberry and cherry. Good length but not overpowering, so that you can enjoy a few glasses without having tannic-lock-jaw. A good tip for quality home drinking at a reasonable price.
RRP £21.99
http://www.waitrosecellar.com/all-wines/popular-regions/rioja-wine/cune-imperial-rioja-reserva
Olagosa Oro, 2008, Bodegas Perica
Grapes: 95% tempranillo, 5% graciano
Wow, a big impressive mouthful of wine. Complex aromas of leather, tobacco, lovely touches of blackberry fruit. This is a ponderous wine to drink slowly and possibly alone, so as not to be distracted. 8 years old, well structured and so has many more on the clock.
It’s pricey at £46.95 but is it worth it? I suppose the real question is: can you afford it? I loved it.
RRP £46.95
http://www.perfectcellar.com/collections/attr-grape-tempranillo/products/bodegas-perica-oro-rioja-reserva-especial-2008
Good foods to accompany can only enhance the pleasure. Well selected bottles, a genius recipe, wrapped up in the evening comfort of doing whatever it is that makes you smile. That could be getting cosy with loved one, writing letters of emails, watching a movie, or relying on a chunky book to transport the mind to other places. Whatever it is, let rip!
Follow us on social media:
Discord in Odesa; pruning at Shabo goes on!
Last week a picture was posted on Twitter of vines in Shabo, a large estate that lies to the west of Odesa on southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. The image seemed benign at face value but the reality, of course, is that the city of Odesa has been bracing itself for attack by Russian forces.
An aperitif by the coliseum
As COVID-19 conspires with the grimmest of winds and rain to force a societal retreat behind our own front doors, the word ennui springs to mind. The muddle of displeasure is pierced when Natalia hands me a large bulbous glass of a liquid I do not recognise.
Artichoke pasta and very fine Pigato
Britain’s lamentable exit
On the eve of Britain’s official departure from the EU, my partner and I decided to explore a small town on the Italian Riviera where thewintry cold doesn’t feel so much like cold war bite.
I had warned my significant other that I would be having an inverse departure party, a release of the sanity valve if you like!
Soave: volcanic wines with elegance and longevity
Sitting inside the ancient castle walls inside the town of Soave, a short drive from Verona in northern Italy, the unique slightly almond aroma of the indigenous grape, Garganega, rises gently from my glass. The castle sprawls up the side of an extinct volcano that gives the region its variant soil structures that mark out the better quality of Soave wines.
An American In Paris; Tanisha Townsend (@GirlMeetsGlass) discusses podcasts, Paris wine bars, & what she's drinking at the moment
Tanisha Townsend decided to move to Paris 4 years ago after regularly passing through the city en route to the world’s most famous vineyards. In fact, it was about 2 years ago at the Printemps de Champagne Bouzy Rouge tasting in Reims that I saw (who we shall now refer to as) GirlMeetsGlass chirpily speaking to her web followers on Snapchat.
Wine tasting in Galicia: The pilgrims search for Albarino
The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the final resting place of Saint James, rises out of the landscape, infested with antiquity. The rambling steep streets give way to shafts of dramatic light, emblazoned chapels, and tightly packed tapas bars, dusty, as old novels pressed together in antiquarian bookshops.
